Pipe Down magazine continues to grow from strength to
strength. Not only are they about to see the release of the
third issue any moment now, but they are also hard at work
on the launch of a new website for Pipe Down.
As some of you might know that each issue is based on an
emotion following Plutchik’s wheel of emotion.

Robert Plutchik’s psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion is one of the most influential classification approaches for
general emotional responses. He considered there to be eight primary emotions —
anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust and joy.

Plutchik proposed that these ‘basic’ emotions are biologically primitive and have evolved in

order to increase the reproductive fitness of the animal
This latest edition focuses on ‘Joy’.
For anyone involved in addiction, whether that’s family or friends, or even the addict who is still currently using may find this a difficult emotion to
assess.
I know I did both when I was buried deep in cocaine addiction.
The first question I asked myself was when did I last feel joy
around my addiction, and the truth is I couldn’t remember.
I remember the joyous times when I started using drugs, the
euphoria and the highs, but when the balance of power
shifted from recreational to dependent, there was no joy.
The joy for me personally has come in my abstinence and
sobriety, but the magazine gives a fantastic insight into the
emotion of joy around addiction and continues to bring
humour and controversy to a subject which still today is
taboo.

With the development of the new website, hopefully the
publication will soon be available for people around the
country and world to subscribe to and download all previous
and current issues. There is currently a holding page where
you can download all the issues to date

This is an exciting development for Pipe Down Magazine as
they begin their online campaign to #BreakTheStigma.

The #BreakTheStigma campaign is something that you will
be seeing a lot of over the coming weeks and months as
there are some exciting new ideas that are coming out of
the magazine all with the sole aim of breaking down the
walls of stigma that still saturate the word of addiction.

The aim is to take the words ‘junkies, addicts, crackheads, smack heads and alchies’ and de-stigmatise them.

How important is language when talking about these people?
Does it disempower them, or empower them? I very much
think this is dependent on where we are in their journey of
recovery. A successful banker many years clean, may find it
empowering to say he was a smackhead, but the heroin
addict in active addiction who can’t get a landlord to let them
have a look round a property because of the stigma, may
disagree. I think this terminology is just the tip of the
iceberg when looking to overcome the stigma that surrounds
drug addiction. Working with the ‘said’ individuals and
showing the world that we (and I am one of them) can
overcome our demons and become a true value to society,
is another step in the right direction. Hell the team at Pipe
Down Magazine is proof in the pudding that that the phoenix
can rise from the flames of addiction.
Not only will Pipe Down Magazine be focusing on this
campaign we will also continue to grow their team with the
ultimate dream being for the magazine to be the central hub
to get people in addiction back into the work place and
society, giving us and them a sense of self worth and
belonging again, something that is so far removed from the
‘addict’ that we became, but in the mean time, while they
continue to grow, they are actively seeking businesses of all
sizes to work alongside the magazine to help support their
recruitment programme, whether that be with training,
apprenticeships or full time employment, in exchange for
fantastic advertising opportunities with their fast growing
enterprise.
The more businesses that are on board and are willing
to #BreakTheStigma the better it will be for our society.

Addiction is rising and it isn’t just junkies on the street. Its
Doctors, teachers, lawyers, PR Managers, Directors and a
lot of professionals. Its not just the people we have
stereotyped and labelled throughout the last 100 years, its
actually a large portion of society between the ages of 16-40
Isn’t it about time we tap back into this endless pool of
talent, and help get the best out of them for the benefit of
everyone, Pipe Down Magazine is doing this and hats off to
them for trying to #BreakTheStigma